How to ace your Facebook page

Facebook is a challenge to most biz owners. Especially if you’re just there for cat videos, funnies and stalking. There are still a lot of biz owners who don’t want a Facebook business page because they still believe that Facebook is for personal stuff and they don’t want to connect their biz and personal lives. If this is you then you’re still living in the dark ages of Facebook.

Facebook is now much more business oriented than it was a few years ago. If you have a business and clients who are on Facebook, then you need to have a Facebook business page. It is completely separate from your personal profile. The only connection between the two is that you have to log into your business page using your personal profile. This is to help prevent scammers from creating biz pages. Followers of your biz page won’t see any of your personal stuff unless you’ve accepted a friend request from them.

Maybe you already have a Facebook page but it’s just sitting there collecting cyberdust. You never go there or do much with it. You want to, and you know you should but you just couldn’t be arsed because you don’t actually know what to do there and you don’t really want to pay someone else to do it. Or maybe you do have someone posting for you but they are sharing mostly random posts without any specific goal in mind, and at least half of them send your followers to other pages or sites, away from yours.

Or you could be just starting out and haven’t set up a business page on Facebook yet. People are saying you should, but you don’t know how to. If this is you, then click here to set up your page and follow the steps in the rest of this article. You have to be logged into Facebook. When you create your page, if you are a small business, then select ‘local business or place’, not public figure, brand or company. Otherwise Facebook won’t show your page to the right people.

When you first set up your page, Facebook will guide you through the basic process. My list below will help you to make sure that everything relevant is completed in order to optimise your page visibility and get you ready to start posting and sharing your page. Once your page is set up, start at the beginning and work down the list. If you already have a Facebook page, then use the list to make sure you have completed everything you need to get done on your page before launching into a goal-oriented posting schedule.

1. Sort out your thumbnail

Yes, that little square image that looks like a profile pic. You should not have a product photo, business card or flyer or anything like that there. If this is you, then go and delete that right now. You should only have one of 2 image types there:

(a) Your company logoNo phone number, email address, website address, or anything like that with it. Just your logo. On its own. And by ‘logo’ I mean the graphic or image that represents your company. Not your company name. Unless the 2 can’t be separated, or you don’t have a logo graphic.

The reason for displaying your logo graphic only is that it’s quick and easy to recognise any posts you share as being from your business. Your company name will be quite visible all over Facebook right next to this little image as your page name. Putting your company name there will usually make it too small to see on mobile devices (80% of South African web users are on mobile). And if it is nice and clear then people will start to remember your logo when they see it. The more often they see it clearly, the higher the chances of them remembering it and thinking of you when they need what you’re selling. Look at the Facebook pages of some top brands and you’ll see what I mean.

(b) Your own photo
But, bear in mind that a photo of your mug will only go in that spot if your business is named after you. e.g. Jo Petzer – Brand Consultant. Or if your page is a celebrity page, or a public figure – which it should not be if you’re a small business. If you fall under this category then your photo needs to be a good quality, professional, smiley head and shoulders shot. Not a shitty cellphone pic. If people can see you made an effort with your photo, they will expect that you will make an effort for them and be more likely to want to work with you.

2. Your cover image

This is that big area at the top of your page where you can insert a horizontal image or video. The best way to use this space is to display a single product, a promotion, or something with a call to action (like a ‘sign up’). It’s not for uploading your company flyer. You could have a nice pic of your staff, or the front of your building – but only if they are really great pics, not nasty DIY ones. If you really don’t have anything great to put there, then visit a free stock photo website like Unsplash, find a great pic relevant to what you do (use the search), download it and upload it to your cover image.

If you’re going to put text into your cover image, make sure it is just a little bit, e.g. a heading, and then a bit of descriptive text below it. Also, if you’re going to include text, before you do, mentally divide the cover area into 5, and make sure your text is situated only in the middle 3 fifths. This is because on mobile devices, the left and right edges are cropped and if you have text there, then you’re going to lose it.

Use Canva templates to create your profile and cover images at the correct size and in the correct format, so they upload properly without any bits being cropped off. Of if Canva looks too complicated then drop me an email me and I’ll give you a hand.

3. Your cover button

Below and to the right of your cover image is a blue button. You can change that button to other options like: book now, call now, send message, contact us, send email, learn more, sign up, watch video, shop now, among others. As soon as you mouse over that button, you’ll see the options.

4. Your page info

This is what visitors will see when they click on the ‘About’ section of your page. To edit your page info, click on ‘About’ in the left sidebar of your page, then ‘Edit page info’. Make sure you complete all the info, as follows:

(a) AddressIf you work from home and by appointment only then still include your address but just exclude your house number. Facebook will automatically insert a map with the option for people to ‘get directions’. This is very helpful when you have an appointment with a new client because you can just send them to your Facebook page to find your office. Facebook will use your street and area to generate a map, which will make your business more visible to people in your local community

(b) Contact details
Insert your listed phone number and your email address. If you have a land line and a mobile number, use the number that is listed in your local directory. This will also help increase your online visibility.

(c) General info
This is a super important section and includes your business category, business name and user name. Don’t select more than 2 business categories. If you offer more than 2 services, then use only your most popular ones, or the ones you want to make the most money with, with your primary service as the first one. Facebook uses this information to show your page to people who are interested in what you do. Keep your company name short. Don’t try and include a descripton of your company here. The shorter it is, the easier it will be to find and read at a glance. Then your user name will become your page URL. ie. my username is @cosmic.creations and my Facebook page address (URL) is facebook.com/cosmic.creations. Try to keep all your social media user names the same if you can.

(d) Hours and business details
If you have business hours then put them in here, and also your general price range (shown in dollar signs – 1 figure, 2 figures, 3 figures, etc). Add in when your business opened or started. This is also important because it gives info about how long you’ve been established for.

(e) Additional contact infoThis section allows you to insert your website, and other social media links like Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc. Fill this in with your links.

(f) About section
This is the short bit of text that will be visible when people see your page in their newsfeed. Keep it super short. Just a few words about your and/or your biz.

(g) General information
This is where you can insert a longer description about your products/services.

(h) Your story
This is where you connect with your first-time followers on a personal level. Whatever you put here needs to impress whoever is reading it – but in a genuine way. If you work on your own use a good horizontal pic of yourself and make sure the title says ‘My story’, and you write it in the first person (I, me). If you’re a biz with staff then leave it as ‘Our story’ and write in first person plural (our, we). Make your story fun and interesting so people actually want to know more about you and what you do.

(i) Add yourself as a team member to your page
This will allow your biz page to show up in your personal profile so your friends can see what you’re up to and maybe do some business with you.

5. Verifying your page

Facebook pages that have been verified, display a little grey tick next to the page name. This means that Facebook considers you a legitimate business – it’s basically Facebook’s stamp of approval for your biz.

Why should you verify your page?

That little grey tick also tells people that your page is the actual, official page for that business. If someone else creates another page with the same name, they won’t be able to verify it. Yours will be the real McCoy. Having your page verified is good for your credibility because people who visit it will know that you’re the real deal and not some scam artist trying to steal their money. Finally, verified pages have better visibility online in general and on Facebook, specifically. Verified pages will show up in Facebook searches before unverified ones and will also rank higher in Google searches.

How to do it

Firstly, you have to have all the foregoing details completed for your page, including your profile pic and cover image. At the top right of your page, you’ll see ‘settings’. Hit that. Right near the top of the next window you’ll see Page verification. If you don’t see ‘page verification’ then Facebook doesn’t consider your page ‘verification worthy’ yet and you’ll probably need to run it for a while before the option is available to you. From Page Verification, click ‘verify this page’ and enter your publicly listed phone number. Click ‘call me now’ and wait for your phone to ring. Most times it’s within a couple of minutes. You will be given a 4-digit verification code to enter. Once you’ve done that, if you give the correct number, Facebook will verify your page. Sorted.

There is an option to verify your page with documents but it is a pain and most times doesn’t work as well as the call now option.

And that’s it. Your page is now ready for sharing with your friends and clients, and for creating posts.

Watch out for upcoming articles right here on best ways to create engaging posts and manage your Facebook business page.